., in comparison, in 1958 through 2012, the united states has invested $1.4 trillion in our nation's highways, $538 billion in aviation, $266 billion in transit, and yet amtrak, which was created in 1971, has received a small fraction of that funding at $41 billion. when you consider that and compare it to the oil and gas industry, which received $441 billion in federal subsidies, although more than half of those have been available to the energy sector. we have spent to bring that together, we spent more in one year with the oil and gas and energy companies and their industry than we have spent in the entire life of the program of amtrak. clearly there seems to be an imbalance and it's not one that should be continued. regarding the vision of high speed rail, the amtrak excela service is one of those alternatives and know it may only achieve the speeds of average of 83 miles per hour, along the n.e.c., surely that is significantly better than the long delays in crawling engagor interstate systems that we have. this committee should continue the role as it always has to facilitate th